


The Flesh Maze

by Qyll



Series: The Gates and Marsh House of Haunted Horrors [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: !Flesh, !Spiral, Beautiful Pieces of Art and Architecture That Might Be Made of People, Blood and Gore, Cannon Typical Enthusiasm for Other People's Misery, Genderfluid Character, If Only For This Fandom Specifically, Is a Tag That Should Probably Exist, It's Fine Though It's How They Show They Care, Original Character(s), Other, Stupidly Romantic Occasionally Homicidal Avatars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qyll/pseuds/Qyll
Summary: A short story about a pair of OC Avatars, The Artist and The Perspective, and how they met.And if you like this you should read the poetry that LittleHornedMage wrote. The poems and the story are both about the Avatars and the poems are AMAZING.
Series: The Gates and Marsh House of Haunted Horrors [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664791
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: The Flesh Maze





	The Flesh Maze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WilderVoid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilderVoid/gifts).
  * Inspired by [(our love) it twists and bleeds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23161267) by [WilderVoid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilderVoid/pseuds/WilderVoid). 



_For my Darling._

The ribbons across their ribs fluttered in the breeze, and they shivered in delight to feel them dance. Long sweeps of red with pale skin peeking out from between like an inverted cage of bone. Charlie smiled as they carefully laced the newest addition across their right side, angling the sweep _just so_ and fixing the front across the plane of their chest. 

A little flash of movement out of the peripheral of their eye caused them to pause. They resisted the urge to turn their head. Last time they'd done that, the feeling of being watched had disappeared along with the shadow of a figure. They could see it now, the small figure standing half in shadows at the end of the alley. Hard to make out features when you couldn't look at it directly. They shifted their foot slightly to avoid the cooling pool of blood. The skinless flesh around the body's leg glistened in a wet spiral. They began to pull the next skein off, rolling it around their hands as they wound it into a beautiful ball. A new scarf, maybe. And some bones to carve and chip. New pendants to be poured. Bone flecks would be just _so beautiful_ in the resin... 

They blinked. 

To the left now. Closer. Halfway up the alley. The figure took a step towards them. Then another. They could hear it on the left side, see them on the right. A few more steps. Another blink. 

“I like your top.” Whispered a voice behind Charlie. They could feel the breath of the mouth; the body so close they could swear they could feel the warmth.

“Thanks.” 

The figure was back halfway down the alley. They hadn't blinked. Unsure how they hadn't seen the movement. The figure seemed to be shrinking away, stepping back in response to their quiet reply.

“Wait!” Silence stretched. No one visible, not obvious or on the peripheral. They glanced down at the body, caught their reflection in the pool of blood. She stared back at them behind glasses they weren't wearing. Hard to make out full features in the light, or lack of it, really. 

Bags under her eyes, but a feverish, bright intensity even a puddle of stolen blood in a dark alley couldn't pale. Small quirk to the edge of her mouth, like the beginnings of a smirk. A few seconds of regarding each other. Maybe minutes. They could never agree, later. The woman in the reflection turned to walk away with a shy duck of her head. 

“See you around?” The words came out unbidden, almost a rush, intrigue lacing Charlie's words with a clumsy feverishness. 

A pause.

“Sometimes, I suspect.” She doesn't sound unhappy about it before she's gone.

The necklace they design that night has chips of bone, and a clever inclusion of mirror in the centre. Examined straight on the necklace looks normal, but looking at it from the side means each half is its own; a perfectly ruined symmetry. A reflection with a broken perspective. Charlie puts it in their gallery, once again lamenting that there are so few people they can show their collection to. 

*******

Penelope likes the Library at the university. Especially the basement.

The stacks are monstrous things, like the tombstones of giants, blocking light. It leaves some aisles overbright as they greedily capture the halogen glare, and others in a perpetual dusk. The corridors between shelves seem to stretch on forever. You can't see where the shelves break from each other until you walk down the long column of the aisles. So little space between them, claustrophobic and difficult to navigate. People scared each other down here all the time, popping out from hidden spaces they hadn't seen unless they'd been looking for them. Losing track of the edges of the room, trying madly to find their way out of these halls of unhelpful tomes, the smell of stale dust and the edge of sweat in their noses. The winding halls of the third and fourth floor were just as bad. The building had been designed by Donald Kirkbride, an architect known for designing some of the most successful prisons and asylums in the nineteenth century, and then for going quite mad. 

She'd been writing her thesis on him, back when that was something she'd cared about.

He'd been so close, too. So close to really _understanding_. He just hadn't been able to see that all that was holding him back was the shape of the world. All you had to do was simply... _let go_. Of expectations. Of the idea that one door into a room meant only one way out. Or that a window had to show the view outside that room. Or any room. 

Of course, finding the copy of _Quantum Situque_ wedged between the only book on Kirkbride and another book on that _hack_ Smirke had proven to really be the key. She should probably return the book to the Leitner Library as per the bookplate, but well. She really wasn't going to do that. She'd skipped classes for days reading the book over and over again. It was so much more than the tyranny of dimension that it freed her from. Peripheral space was a mutable and malleable thing, and she claimed it as her own. Reflections were simply extensions you had to want to access. Really it was all so _easy_.

Which side of the mirror is she on? Whichever side she _wants_ to be.

Finally surfacing she'd gone back to the library. She wound her way into the stacks, bag heavy with drafting gear. Walked between the shelves, winding in deeper and deeper until she found a broad table, heavy pendulous lights overhead. Waiting for her. She lost track of the time as she drafted room after room, building after building. She heard footsteps through the stacks every so often. The quick, hiccuping breath of someone's throat thick with tears. “I can't go left I already went left, where the fuck is the door I fucking hate this place-” Penelope sighed, delighted to see the purpose of the space in living practice. The Library sighed too, content. She listened to the footfalls for hours and smiled at the loud hiccuping sobs. 

She would wander city streets at night, sometimes. For inspiration. If you ever wanted to experience impossible architecture all you had to do was look at any civic planning project, after all. 

And one night in an alley, she found a creature in red ribbons. She stalked them from the peripherals and puddles, reflections in windows and mirrors. They were _beautiful._ Creative. Weaving the flesh from people as easily as she wove them into endless loops or left them pounding on mirrors, looking at the world as broken backwards things until she left. Leaving an empty mirror and an empty space where one less useless person was. She was in awe. How could someone so beautiful ever want anything to do with her? It took weeks of careful observation before she suspected they were aware of her. Oops. 

After agonizing over it for days, Penelope finally got up the nerve to approach. She's a very shy girl, alright? It's very hard to tell someone you have a deep, meaningful respect for their approach to art and murder. So, of course, she _complimented them on their outfit._ If she could have just _died_ right then, she probably would have. But well she wasn't exactly sure she _could_ die anymore, really, so onward they would have to go. 

******

Charlie invited her to their gallery. They were nervous, of course. This girl seemed so... _much_. It was hard to get a feel for what she would do. Hard enough to tell where she was, half the time. But the reverent way she approached each piece, examining it from all angles and sides, turning sideways to see it from the corner of her eye just to see how THAT changed it. It was. They hadn't known how much that would mean. To be appreciated and understood. They talked for hours about each piece; They told her where the piece came from, or whom. And she just continued to absorb everything with those wide, feverish eyes and her quirked smile.

A week later Penelope invited Charlie to the Library. Led them through the winding stacks of books, through aisles like veins, pulsing with a living warmth all their own and it felt like they were digging their way into the organs of a living creature. Oh, it felt like _comfort._ She showed them her schematics, rooms that made perfect sense as she explained them, even as the pictures themselves showed impossible things. She pulled out from under the desk the largest rolled diagram yet. She bit her lip and a bead of blood formed, a perfect crimson droplet, too small to fall under its own weight. They reached out and brushed a finger against it, bead of blood bright against the pale white before they brought it to their lips. She shivered and her cheeks flushed tremendously. So did theirs. 

She ducked her head and turned and spread the paper out across the desk. 

_The Flesh Maze_ , it read at the top in a sharp, neat hand. 

“I've designed you a gallery.” She told them. They shook their head.

“You've designed _Us_ a Gallery. I won't have it any other way.”

She smiled hugely, and somewhere in the arteries of the library someone was crying and it was just... perfect.

“Alright. Well, let me show you _our_ gallery, then. It starts with a haunted house, because who doesn't love _those_?”

Their smile was too many sharp teeth, and utterly _happy_. 

********

Well I hope you guys dig our MAG OC's,we've been bumping them around in our heads for awhile now while we sadly wait for More MAG. Here's the twitter link for the inspiration for Charlie's Ribbon Top!

<https://twitter.com/y0yof1/status/1235744600217747456?s=09>

Comments welcome always, and happy to answer any questions. This community is just amazing, and I love you all. <3 


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